Overview
- The Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved a perpetual-futures contract on May 29, 2026, and Kalshi opened trading for a bitcoin perpetual shortly after before adding an ethereum perpetual on June 4, 2026.
- The CFTC issued guidance that enables onshore listings and a Foreign Futures routing that lets firms such as Coinbase Financial Markets provide access to certain overseas-listed crypto derivatives under U.S. oversight.
- Several U.S. platforms including Kraken, Robinhood and Gemini have signaled plans to list regulated perpetuals, and Kalshi says it has filed for more than a dozen additional crypto perps pending separate CFTC review and plans to use CF Benchmarks for pricing.
- Incumbent exchange leaders warned that perpetuals often allow high leverage and automatic liquidations, and they say 24/7 trading could strain clearing, margin and surveillance systems and create systemic spillover risks.
- Perpetual futures have no expiry and use a funding-rate payment between longs and shorts to track spot prices; large offshore perp volumes—reported in the tens of trillions in 2025—help explain why U.S. venues are racing to onshore the market and why oversight and operational capacity are now central issues.